Melbourne braced himself as oblivion opened before him, magnetic gloves being the only thing keeping him from flying out into the vast emptiness of space with the garbage that was released to make the opening of the garbage chute seem normal to the Jovian force.
As Melbourne crawled carefully outside and along the hull of the ship, he instinctively grabbed the nearest handlebar designed for EVA guidance when exterior ship repairs needed to be made. Looking at the Earth below and the vastness of open space before him, Melbourne's feelings were similar to those of someone scaling the edge of a very tall cliff, but he was getting ready to jump with no harness, tether or jetpack. In ordinary situations, this form of EVA would defy every safety regulation in the Martian Republic and all other civilized nations in Sol. However, this was not a normal situation.
[Mission: Imperial Interlopers
*A frigate from the Jovian Empire has encroached upon your mission and now threatens to kill you and your crew if you do not find a way to defeat them.
*Reach the command chair of the S.S. Michishio and destroy the frigate with the derelict's last remaining nuke
*Defeat the marine squad currently investigating the ship.
*Soldiers Remaining: 10/10]
The Mission had appeared after Melbourne had injected his respirocytes and Victoria had given him the suit.
After getting over the initial fear of heights that he was experiencing, he looked at the heavily armored steel frigate from the Jovian Empire. It loomed in his sight behind the old derelict like a vulture looming over its prey, it's red steel hull imposing against the background of two inferior aluminum hulled ships.
"Alright." said Melbourne, closing his eyes for a moment and gulping in anxiety. "Here goes nothing. Activate stealth mode"
Victoria's stealth suit activated stealth mode as Melbourne took a leap of faith, kicking off the hull of the Seeker, a brief instinctual sinking feeling grabbing his chest as he cast his fate into the hands of empty space and the accuracy of his kick. Compartments in the suit opened to allow various inflatable nanomaterials to form into a specific geometry designed to make it invisible to radar. Now, Melbourne could only pray that he would make it to the derelict without being detected and that the officers wouldn't send a search party out to investigate the garbage dump.
After about five minutes of floating and praying, Melbourne finally arrived at the hull of the derelict without any interference. He let out a bated breath and grabbed an ancient bar, summoning his drone to his location from within the ship to cut out a manhole large enough for him to crawl into.
Melbourne used the drone to scout ahead on his path through ancient, disused ventilation systems void of any oxygen to circulate through their ship. He wanted to avoid any confrontations if possible before he arrived at the command chair.
He had almost arrived at the manhole when he felt a strong force stab into him from behind.
[HP: 15/20]
Melbourne turned to find a red armored soldier had struck him with the but of his weapon and was now about to fire. Melbourne drew his Zlock and fired back, hitting the soldier's hands and disarming the man.
As the soldier grasped his hands in pain, Melbourne made another five silent shots through the vacuum into the head, the heavily armored glass finally cracking and depressurizing the suit. The soldier grabbed his throat as the life drained out of his exposed, horrified face before Melbourne turned around and continued on towards his destination.
[Soldiers Remaining: 9/10
+5 XP
XP: 10/200]
Melbourne had received one point of XP from training the day he was awakened after the pirate attack.
"Private Donelson, do you read me?" came a voice over the Jovian intercom that Melbourne was tapped into after about thirty seconds. "You missed your ten minute check-in. Are you alright?"
"Shit." thought Melbourne in horror. "This is why I wanted to avoid confrontations. I might be able to stealthily take out the whole squadron if I need to, but if I do that, the frigate will send in many more. Ten soldiers is one thing. A frigate can hold a hundred.
"Private Donelson, I am redirecting our squad to the location of your radio beacon. I'm going to call the captain and ask if he can send in another squad or two as well."
"Yup, I'm gonna have company." thought Melbourne bitterly.
Melbourne guided desperately into the corridor where the manhole into the bridge was and found himself face to face with a charging Jovian soldier with a combat knife, striking into his right leg.
[*HP: 10/20
*There is a puncture in your right leg. You have 1 minute before you run out of air and die.
*You are now bleeding and will lose 1 H.P. every minute until you have solved your blood loss.]
Melbourne screamed through the pain and wrestled the soldier in a bitter duel.
"Sir, I found an intruder in the center ventilation system! He's going towards that strangely fortified room with the chair!"
The Jovian soldier gave the warning but was distracted enough while doing so that Melbourne was able to punch him off and grab his own knife, plunging it into the man's torso and cutting through several major organs.
[*Soldiers Remaining: 8/10
*+5 XP
*XP: 15/200]
"Well, now I'm in trouble." thought Melbourne, pulling out a evaseal that Victoria had given him a spray bottle of to put over his wound and suit puncture. Evaseal was a specially designed nanomatierial that could cover a wound, increase coagulation and temporarily repair a puncture in a spacesuit. It was a widespread solution for space combat and E.V.A. work in various space based fields of labor.
[*Bleeding has stopped
*Puncture has been sealed]
Melbourne grabbed the combat knife and the zero gravity combat rifle that was still slung to the soldier's back.
[Equipment
*Knife: +2 Melee Damage
*Combat Knife: +7 Melee Damage
*Zlock: + 5 Ranged Damage
-Ammo: 20/5
*ZMJ-13: +5 Ranged Damage
-Ammo: 20/20
-Rate of Fire: 10 rounds/second]
Melbourne threw away the old knife he had taken off of the first pirate he killed a few days ago and replaced the new combat knife into his sheath without a second though. The ZMJ-13 was a nice upgrade, but the Zlock was still an ideal sidearm. His new gun might be just what he needed to survive the coming encounter as eight soldiers would soon be coming to kill him.
Melbourne got the attention of one soldier and raced into a room whose only entrance was a narrow corridor so that it would be hard for the soldiers to surround him from either side.
One after one, five soldiers attempted to enter in after him as Melbourne shot each one with his new weapon as they were bunched up together.
[*Soldiers Remaining: 3/10
*+25 XP
*XP: 40/200
*Warning: ZMJ-13 Ammunition: 0/20]
Melbourne was out of the precious ammunition he would need to survive the remaining three as his Zlock rounds didn't have the armor piercing capabilities he needed for those quick kills. It had taken too many shots on the head of his first soldier to break the helmet glass, and he wasn't sure he'd be able to kill more than one of them before they were on top of him with their own professional weapons.
Luckily, the soldiers didn't seem to know that and therefore hesitated to come charging down the corridor. A grenadier attempted to throw in a grenade to either kill Melbourne or get him kicking out of there, but Melbourne's Aclito advised him to shoot the pineapple, making it explode harmlessly in midair, the light blinding both sides before the fight could continue.
"Think he's dead, sergeant?" asked the voice of one of the soldiers, not realizing Melbourne could hear them.
"I wish you would be silent, corporal." said the voice of the squad leader. "You know we aren't supposed to engage in comms during these operations. Only hand signs. You never know if an enemy is hacking our comms."
"I don't think so." said a third voice. "The grenade exploded a little early. I think the fucker shot it in midair. Lucky S.O.B. I'm gonna throw another one in. I have three left and I don't dare go in to collect more off of the corpses after the way the others were just mowed down. I think he got seaman Anchil's ZMJ."
The grenadier threw another pineapple for Melbourne to fire upon it just like the previous.
"Son of a bitch can't be that good of a shot!" cried the grenadier over the intercom. "I can accept a lucky shot, but this… These people are civilian private security forces at worst, right sergeant? That's what I was told."
"I was told the same." said the squad leader. "Perhaps they have a veteran with some good shooting skills on their expedition."
The grenadier threw again and got the same reaction from Melbourne. He expended last grenade, the final explosion pushing one of the corpses into the room with him. On it was a single pineapple grenade whose pin had not been pulled. Melbourne smiled at the sight.
"My turn." whispered Melbourne for no one to hear as he took the grenade and pulled the pin, throwing it down the corridor to the shock of the three blockading his exit.
The white light of the explosion was accompanied by a satisfying system message in Melbourne's retina.
[*Soldiers Remaining: 0/10
*+15XP
*XP: 55/200]
Melbourne rushed out of the room and past the floating corpses of his enemies to reach the command chair and save the Seeker as well as his own skin.
Finally arriving, he strapped himself to the familiar chair and connected with the neural interface.
[Nuclear Missiles: 1]
Targeting Computer: Passive]
Melbourne willed the targeting computer to activate and got a disappointing message.
[Targeting Computer Rebooting…
3 Minutes Till Activation]
Melbourne remembered the squad leader commenting that he would call the captain for reinforcements and began to get scared. Checking the camera, his fears were confirmed. Thirty flames glowed brilliantly in the aft camera of the derelict for Melbourne to witness. Thirty soldiers were closing in to assist the initial crew who had called for help. He didn't have three minutes before he'd be surrounded and annihilated.